A Frozen Ghost, A Warm Kiss LxLight
by InMyWildestMemories
Summary: Christmas Eve has come. Instead of presents, laughter and warmth, Raito is presented with his sins as Kira, and discovers Ryuzaki is his Ghost of Christmas Past. And when faced with a terrible choice, will Raito admit his feelings for Ryuzaki or lose L?


**Disclaimer: I don't own Raito Yagami, Ryuzaki / L, or any other characters mentioned in this fanfiction. Also, I don't own Death Note.**

Note: Raito is 'Light' in Japanese. It's not an OC.

Though I should apologize early for a bit of OoC-ness from L. But maybe that would have been what he was actually like drunk?

Edited: February 28th, 2010

- - o0o0o0o - -

Raito pushed aside the glass and plastic, all smelling with the scents of fruits, flowers and the other ingredients found in the magical, intoxicating substance we call wine, to clear off a spot on the counter to place his bag. The constant tapping of Ryuzaki off in the corner was somewhat comforting in the silence of the now empty house - all the adults had gone home on this Christmas Eve night, leaving the two alone under the twinkling light of their makeshift Christmas tree in the office.

"Ryuzaki, did you enjoy yourself tonight?" the teen asked, rinsing out some glasses in the sink, the warm water running between his fingers with the remains of red wine. The only answer he got was a hiccuping sound.

"Excuse me, Raito-kun." he said, continuing his typing without missing a beat. But then he hiccuped again.

Ryuzaki's hiccups made Raito turn off the water to see what that sound was. Sometime was loud, high-pitched, girly - but Misa had been escorted home by Matsuda a while ago?

Raito poked his head outside the kitchen to see Ryuzaki jerk in his seat and hiccup again. He started to chuckled, trying to keep quiet, but Ryuzaki heard him anyway.

"What is Raito-kun laughing about?" Ryuzaki asked, slurring his words.

"You hiccuping." Raito explained, cocking a brow at the slurring. "It's funny-sounding."

"What's so humorous about my bodily noises?" Ryuzaki frowned at the teenager.

"You sound like a girl." Wiping off his damp skin on his pant legs, he abandoned the kitchen duties to come and take a seat by the detective, to oversee what kind of notes he was always taking.

"I do not sound like a girl." Ryuzaki retorted, and hiccuped again, only Raito to laugh even more. "Don't laugh at me, Raito-kun!" he said, taking a swipe at him with a pale hand. But the momentum of his actions only caused the intoxicated, dark-haired man to tumble forward, falling from the couch onto the pine-needle littered carpet at Raito's feet.

"You're drunk, aren't you." Raito said, stating fact.

Ryuzaki rolled on his back, looking up at the detective, and then Ryuzaki, the greatest detective in the world did something _astounding._

HE GIGGLED.

"Nooooo . . . " Ryuzaki said, cheeks flushed from 300-year-old wines. Then he giggled some more.

Raito's brows went up in surprise. "You're REALLY drunk." Reaching down, he grabbed a handful of white cloth to yank on Ryuzaki's frame, causing him to sit up. "Maybe I should get you home, so Wat-."

"Raito-kun is sexy!"

Raito let go of him really fast, stumbling backwards. "What?" He couldn't have been hearing correctly-

"Raito-kun is sexy!" he repeated, hiccuping again and smiling like an idiot.

Raito shook his auburn head, running a hand through it. '_He's not being logical_' Raito thought to himself. '_There's no way in his right mind he'd say that. Ever. He must be copying Misa - perhaps this is some sort of joke he's playing, to break my nerves. That would be the likely case - act drunk and stupid to see if I'd tell him I was Kira._'

The teen sighed, running his fingers through his hair in exasperation. You think a guy would get a break on Christmas. "Yeah, we should get you home now," Raito said, deciding that ignoring the statement would be the logical and least likely way to avoid punching the other in his ghostly face. "You need to sleep off your stupidity."

"I am not being stupid, Raito-kun!" Ryuzaki said, hiccuping again. "I am in my right drunken mind!" Trying to stand to his feet, he struggled to retain his slouched balance, but managed to stand. "And besides, Raito-kun, I needs to get a few things before." He tried to take a step towards Raito, but stumbled, falling forward.

Instinct overtook anger, and Raito's arms jerked out, catching Ryuzaki by the armpits. Sadly, the momentum knocked them both back, and Raito found himself pinned under the thin frame of his employer, Ryuzaki's sitting on his stomach.

"Fantastic. I have a drunk guy sitting on me." Raito said, trying to scoot outfrom under his employer. He wasn't comfortable with this at all.

"Uh, Ryuzaki, get off." Raito demanded, clearly not in a good mood.

Ryuzaki shook his head. "I have Rai-chan right where I want him." he said, hiccuping.

"No, you don't. You're drunk - and don't call me Rai-chan." he said, squirming around violently to throw Ryuzaki off.

"I told Rai-chan I'm in my sane mind, drunk or not." Ryuzaki said, reaching over and pinning Raito's wrists to the carpet, his head stopping inches from Raito's.

Raito tried to push his head into the carpet, to get away from this drunken detective. "Drunk people are out of their mind and not to be trusted."

Ryuzaki grinned stupidly. "Rai-chan, didn't you know that sixty-nine percent of people are totally honest when under the influence of alcohol?"

"So that leaves the other thirty-one percent to be complete fools, like you are being."

"I am not being a fool, Rai-chan."

"You are too."

"Am not."

"Are not."

"Are too."

"Are not!"

"Are too!"

"Are too!"

"Are not!"

Ryuzaki grinned stupidly. "So I win!"

Raito shook his head no, shaking away the last argument. "No you didn't!"

"Yes I did!"

"How so?!"

"I won the prize, did I not?"

Raito cocked his head to the side, cinnamon eyes flashing confusion. "What prize? When was there a prize?"

Ryuzaki's grin never left his face. "Rai-chan in my prize."

"Wait, I'm wh-" Raito started to say, but his sentence was never finished as he found a pair of lips took his captive.

Total shock throughout Raito's body, All his nerves shut down, then restarted with an electric jolt. His heart went into overdrive, beating at a rate which he was sure it was beating out of his chest, and his fingernails dug into his palms, threatening to cut into his skin.

Only in his craziest dreams did these things happen - but Raito found himself not to be rejecting these visions as violently as he would have thought in those nights. He reasoned that it was just because Ryzuaki and he had been sharing a bed due to those damn handcuffs so long ago, but when he finally got his privacy back, he found himself to be having those dreams even more so than he did, and they went farther, too. Raito had to wake up earlier to make sure he didn't have to change his sheets.

Raito closed his eyes, finding himself to be enjoying the situation until he felt a tongue flick past his lips. It jerked him back to earth, and he freaked out.

"R-Ryuzaki, what the HELL are you doing?!" he yelled, bashing his head against the detectives forehead, much to his own pain. Seems his nerves were working fine. Especially from the tingle in his lips.

Ryuzaki sat up, stupid grin gone. "Rai-chan did that wrong . . ."

Raito thrashed some more, but Ryuzaki held his wrists down tight. "N-No, I didn't do anything wrong! W-What did you expect me to do? You're drunk, and you need to go sleep it off, and you're acting stupid, and I know you aren't in your right mind, so whatever you're doing, you're going to regret it in the morning -"

Ryuzaki released one of Raito's wrists, and put a finger to the still-tingling lips of Raito, gently parting them.

"You have to open your mouth." Ryuzaki said before attempting to resume the kiss. But Raito's now free hand smacked him away.

"K-Knock it off, I don't have to do anything!"

Ryuzaki's grip never lessened on Raito, nor did Raito's attack cause him to waver from his.

"All's fair in love and war, Rai-chan."

"This isn't love or war!" Raito said, noting the irony. But he didn't know the power of his words on Ryuzaki, so the teenager kept right on going. "Damnit, you're drunk and thinking you're in love with me or something just as stupid - for the love of God, Ryuzaki, I have a girlfriend and you obviously have some deprivation issues!"

The grey eyes above Raito fell cold, somber, almost hurt and his grip relaxed.

"No, it's not . . . love, is it Raito-kun . . . " Ryuzaki said and stood up, wavering slightly as he left the room and left Raito on the floor, confused.

"Ryuzaki?" Raito said aloud. The only response was the opening and slamming of a door.

Raito sat up, looking at the door that lead to the snowy streets outside. Did he just go out there? Drunk? Without shoes? Before Raito really knew what he was doing, he was already pulling on his jacket and going out into the night.

Standing in the doorway, Raito looked around, peering through the thick flakes and darkness. The lights from the windows made the outside world glow with an otherworldly-like eeriness, into which Ryuzaki seemed to vanish. He didn't appear in the orange light of the street lamps that periodically appeared down the lane. It seemed that the detective vanished like a shadow.

"Ryuzaki, where are you?" Raito asked, closing the door behind him and stepping out into the newly fallen inches. His voice echoed the empty streets - of course they'd be empty on Christmas Eve. "Ryuzaki, come back - you shouldn't be out here!"

Walking through the snow, Raito turned around, peering through the snow down the empty street. He wasn't dressed to be outside, and the cold was making him shiver slightly. Damnit, he wanted to get back inside.

Suddenly, the lamps that illuminated the thick flakes of snow flickered, then died altogether. Raito turned around quickly, his heart quickening. "Ryuzaki, where are you?"

"I'm not coming near you."

Raito kept looking around, trying to see where that voice came from. "Ryuzaki, come on, I'm freezing, you're probably freezing, you're not even wearing any shoes, and we need to get you off the street before -"

"Raito, I don't think you realize the magnitude of the predicament you've gotten yourself into." Ryuzaki's said again. The voice seemed to come from everywhere, and Raito cold feel the detective's merciless stare on him.

"What are you talking about, Ryuzaki? We don't have time for this idiocy-"

"Raito, you seem to have forgotten what you did to me." called Ryuzaki again. A crunch of snow behind Raito made him turn, whipping around. He found Ryuzaki staring up at him, crouched down, the snow not seeming to have any effect on him.

"What? Rejected you in your drunken stupor-"

"You killed me."

Raito froze, staring with wide eyes. "I . . . what? No, I didn't - Ryuzaki, you're still alive -"

"What day is it, Raito?"

Raito ignored the drop of the honorific as he continued to shake in the cold. He could barely see Ryuzaki standing only two feet from him in the dark, making him see all the more spooky, like a ghost.

"Christmas Eve."

"No, Raito."

"Yes it is. Unless we missed midnight, then it's Christmas Day -"

"No, Raito. It's not anywhere near Christmas."

Raito shook almost violently, hugging himself to shield from the relentless cold of the snow. "Alright then, g-genius, what kind of point are you getting at?"

Ryuzaki pressed his thumb to his bottom lip. "I would be the Ghost of Christmas Past."

Raito stared, shaking his head. "You're still drunk." he said, reaching out to grab the detective. "C'mon, let's . . ." His voice trailed off when he realized his hand stuck through Ryuzaki's chest.

"Wh . . . what's g-g-going on?"

"You killed me, Raito. You've murdered me and now I'm here to haunt you."

Raito shook his head. Now he was hallucinating things - the cold was finally getting to his brain. "Right, you're haunting me . . ." he nodded, chuckling. "You're drunk, I'm hallucinating - we need to get inside, Ryuzaki -"

"No."

"No?" Raito stared in disbelief, his words slipping in sharpness from the cold. "R-Ryuzaki, y-you're going to kill us! We have to go back -"

"Not until you admit it - "

"Admit w-what - t-t-that I'm K-K-Kira?!" Raito looked at him with a look of upmost disbelief. "Ryuzaki, you can't be serio-"

" - Or admit that what I heard was true."

This caught Raito off guard as he shook, the fast falling snow making a cap on his auburn head. "What did you here?"

"You use to talk in your sleep, Raito." Ryuzaki said to the shivering teen. "You said things . . ."

Raito would have bit his lip, but the Yagami was too cold. "L-Like w-wh-what?" he said, fearing the worst.

Sadly, it was the worst. "Have you developed romantic feelings for me, Raito-kun?"

Raito kept shivering, hanging his head down, hugging himself tighter. The edges of his vision seemed to blur and darken. "C-C-Can we g-g-g-go inside and t-t-talk about this, p-p-please?"

Ryuzaki seemed to take forever to decide, then gave a slow nod. "Follow me, Raito-kun." he said, turning and walking into the darkness. Raito followed him, stumbling slightly, each step a struggle in the snow. When Ryuzaki started to get too far ahead, Raito called out to him to wait as he fell to his knees in the snow.

Hanging his head, Raito shook violently, having lost the feeling in his fingers and feet. The snow fell even fast now, nearly blinding him with white in the black - he couldn't see more than two inches in front of him.

"Raito-kun, do you need some help?" called Ryuzaki's voice from above him. Raito nodded against his dignity. "B-B-But how -"

A hand appeared in front of him, offering him assistance. "Come on. We're almost there." he said, grabbing Raito by the hand and pulling him up. Whether Ryuzaki's hand was cold or warm, Raito couldn't feel it as he managed to get back on the feet he couldn't feel. Stumbling forward, he was surprised to find he wasn't even on the ground. Ryuzaki had picked him up like a newlywed. Not that Raito was complaining, he was too cold to care. Clinging frailly to the thin male, he buried his wet head into the white shirt in shame as a pale light illuminated from a window, lighting their way back to the house.

Raito only opened his eyes again when light pressed harshly through his closed lids and the door slammed shut behind him. But Ryuzaki didn't let him down at the door. Instead he moved his way, silent as a ghost, through the house and into the darkness of the back rooms.

He closed his eyes again, trusting Ryuzaki to lead him wherever - he was too cold and tired. The teenager continued to shiver and shake even though the house was warm, but the feeling was creeping back into the tips of his fingers as they clung to the white fabric.

"If you're a ghost, how are you c-carrying me?"

"I'm not sure." Ryuzaki said as he nudged open another door - Raito recognized it as his own room. Ryuzaki placed him down gently on the soft covers on his bed, then took a step back, turning around.

"Wait, are you leaving?" Raito asked, sitting upright.

Ryuzaki didn't turn around. "It's time for me to go." he said simply, crouching over slightly. It wasn't what Raito wanted to hear. He sat up, sanding, and began to yell.

"What happened to haunting?" he said, slipping out his disappointment to the back of the ghost. "You won't do it now? Are you still playing damned mind games with me, Ryuzaki!?" Raito was clearly upset, his vioso0n blurring a bit from tears that stung. "W-What about my confession?"

Ryuzaki finally turned around, grey eyes almost alive. "Is there something Raito-kun's going to confess?"

He didn't answer for a moment, but then his damp head gave a slow nod. "Yes."

Ryuzaki came over next to him, sitting on the bed even though the bed didn't give in his weight, and stared straight into Raito's cinnamon eyes. "Yes?"

Raito broke eye contact, looking down to his dark floor - Ryuzaki didn't turn the light on, moonlight spilling through his balcony door. His hand tightened into a fist, the skin like ice.

"I . . . what you heard in my sleep . . . your assumption. . . " Raito's voice was soft, barely above a whisper in the darkness. ". . . it's correct."

A hand slipped onto his, and Raito was surprised to find the skin warm. "I thought so." said Ryuzaki's voice. "Then I can safely tell Raito-kun something?"

"Wait, I'm not done." Cinnamon eyes captured grey ones, which now seemed more alive than ever. It was now or never, Raito figured, so he might as well say this before he gained some common sense. "I . . . I thin- no, I'm pretty sure that I . . . I love you Ryuzaki."

There was a moment of silence filled with the most awkward of tensions between the males. Slowly a thin smile graced Ryuzaki's lips.

"I love you too, but . . . Raito-kun . . . you need to wake up now."

"What?"

His shoulder began to shake violently, and his vision blurred, then sharpened. "I said Raito-kun needs to wake up now!" Ryuzaki yelled. "Wake up!"

Raito's eyes snapped open, and he realized that Ryuzaki was standing over him, shaking his shoulder. "Raito-kun, we're late for work, and Raito-kun cannot sleep in because of a Western holiday."

"Western . . . so it's Christmas Day?"

"Yes, Raito-kun, what other day could it-"

"And you're not dead?"

Ryuzaki looked confused. "No, I'm not. Raito-kun's dreams have very little to do with reality, it seems."

Raito frowned at the detective above him. "My dreams have plenty to do with my reality. What do you know about my dreams, anyway?"

"Then based on your statement, Raito-kun seems to love me."

Raito's eyes went wide, his jaw dropping slightly in surprise. "W-what? How -"

"Raito-kun was talking in his sleep." Ryuzaki explained, and continued before Raito could interrupt him. "Raito-kun was tossing and mumbling - but when Raito-kun said that last statement, I figured it was time to wake him up and see what it meant. Now it seems that it must be taken literally."

Raito looked away, tossing back the covers. He saw that we was at the office, asleep on the couch. A tree twinkled merrily, and trash was littered about. The Christmas party did take place last night, it seemed. He didn't dream that part up.

"Sorry." was the only response he could come up with.

"It's nothing to be sorry about, Raito-kun."

"Yes, it is-"

"It just means that we'll have to keep that kiss of ours a secret?"

"Kiss? What ki-" Raito was gratefully interrupted by a pair of lips capturing his. The shock through his body was nothing compared to the thudding of his heart and the rush of heat and dizziness that took hold of all logic and common sense.

It was just like in his dreams.

"Oh, that kiss."


End file.
